mentioning places
@3SnuggleBunnies (16374)
United States
September 16, 2012 10:16am CST
I have tons of questions of course about blogging. But I wanted to ask about mentioning places or stores and your opinion or tips. Anything wrong with that? I mean say you had a good experience or a bad experience is it just freedom of speech to talk about it and can you mention the store or organizations name? Like I said in my other post there are my "rules" out there but when you start on a pretemplated blog there really isn't a lil FAQ page on the do's and don't or if there is someone direct me that way!
4 responses
@vastari (331)
• Ireland
16 Sep 12
So long as you make sure people know you're just describing your own personal experiences you should be fine. People do that all the time. It shouldn't be a problem even if you're saying something bad about a place so long as you make it well known that it's your opinion formed from your experiences. Freedom of speech means you're perfectly within your rights to say what you think about something. It only becomes a problem if you start saying things as though they're a fact, since that can be read as defamation.
1 person likes this
@3SnuggleBunnies (16374)
• United States
16 Sep 12
Though I think "fact" vs "experience" has alot of grey area. Say if you see something you dislike or improper and it's always that way how does it vary that it was alone your experience and not the experience of all who've patroned there?
@Sandra1952 (6047)
• Spain
16 Sep 12
A blog is something personal, so yes, it's fine to report your experiences - good and bad. As long as you make it clear that this is your experience in a certain store, and don't say anything actionable.
For example, it's okay to say, 'I wish the staff in the (insert small town here) branch of McDonalds were more polite to their customers.' That's your experience in one particular outlet. However if you said 'All McDonalds staff are unpleasant and rude,' that could land you with a claim for defamation.
It's a good idea to have a disclaimer displayed prominently - either on the home page or somewhere else visible - along the lines of 'The experiences/ opinions related here are purely those of the author.' Just cover your back whenever you can.
@3SnuggleBunnies (16374)
• United States
16 Sep 12
I can be rather impetious with my words and I'd certainly hate to get my tush in trouble over my opinion. Hence why I think blogging is so tricky and I have not really posted anything as I don't need my opinion getting me in trouble due to bad phrasing or mentioning a place by name or location.
TY for your imput :)
@winterose (39887)
• Canada
18 Sep 12
You can mention and you can do a review of a product or store giving both the good and bad experiences you had and whether you would recommend this place or product or not. You cannot lie, because you can be sued.
@dorannmwin (36392)
• United States
18 Sep 12
Well, I typically think of blogging as being about your personal experiences so I don't think that there is anything at all wrong with mentioning places and experiences that you have had. The one thing that I would keep in mind, however, is that you really need to be careful when it comes to talking about negative experiences that you might have had. The reason that you would want to be careful with that is that you don't want to be accused of slander.
